Hearthstone, and more galactic adventures.

Hello folks;

Last night I installed Hearthstone, Blizzard’s free to play card game, and it is surprisingly addictive and easy to play. Not only does it bring back past memories of Magic the Gathering and various other card games that my 10 year old self spent countless hours and dollars on trying to build the most amazing deck that I eventually left sitting in a dresser somewhere in my room, but the core mechanics of the game leans towards a similar play style seen in Magic the Gathering, thereby making the title easy to play. When you battle someone, you can either ignore their monsters, unless stated otherwise, and go straight for them in order to lower their health, or you can take out their monsters and attack them head on as well leaving no room for tricks. Whether or not the mentioned maneuvers are strategically viable is for the player to decide when the cards are dealt.

Now the game is Warcraft-themed, so the sounds and sights will all bring back memories and remind the player of Warcraft (World of Warcraft falls under this umbrella theme). When you finish all your moves, it will be a Human peasant that goes: “job’s done,” reminding us of the days of Warcraft 3. The heroes the player uses (decks) are Warcraft heroes: Jaina Proudmoore, Thrall, that Dwarf hunter who likes to hunt big game (sorry Dwarf fans, I do not remember the drunkard’s name), and many others. Now so far I have only scratched the surface, so expect more information and delicious reads in the weeks to come: the game is definitely worth a bit of your time so go check it out.

Okay, now many of you I know are here for one thing: to continue reading about the adventures of the Sith Juggernaut as he runs across the galaxy hunting Ms. Jaesa Willsaam (yes I am still on Chapter 1). Well, thanks to a friend and fellow guild member, I am level 19 and headed to Tatooine (I think I need to level a bit more before I attempt the missions). Now how does it feel to play a Sith Juggernaut (Warrior advanced class) some of you may ask? What sort of benefit does it offer to play a Juggernaut over – say – the Imperial Agent?

Well the story arc is roughly identical in that you are going around hunting down the enemy from the shadows, and you are also eliminating key targets in a sort of “tie up loose ends” mentality, similar to the Imperial Agent. The Sith Warrior’s class story is quite the experience, and the feeling of being a high ranking member of Imperial society, not to mention powerful as well, gives a certain sense of satisfaction when people like Captain Quinn kneels before you to place himself in your service. Now gameplay-wise, the Juggernaut is nice in that the class is able to take quite a bit of punishment before falling to critical levels when it comes to health. Having Quinn healing me while I take on two to four enemies at a time (either they wander into range and get pulled into the fight, or they are clustered together to begin with) makes it a lot easier than playing the Agent’s Sniper advanced class where Kaliyo Djannis does the “tanking,” but because I cannot heal her, she dies and I end up getting beaten into the ground shortly thereafter.

Though I am still in the early stages of the game – chapter 1 and level 19 – the Juggernaut so far as a class and story arc is surprisingly well developed and quite the joy to play. Though not as espionage-like as the Imperial Agent, the level of black ops undertaken by the Sith Warrior still gives the feeling that you are helping the Empire from the shadows, and your actions leave a lasting impact on the galaxy as a whole. Anyways that about concludes this post for today. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you next time.